Our old printer, HP Photosmart 1215, originated from the days of Mac OS X when printer drivers were just slapped together for the "new" operating system. The printer printed but:
- it would not print if more than one person had logged in since it was last rebooted
- it would not work with my new USB hub (which I at first thought was a problem with the hub)
- it was extremely slow
- it used up an inordinate amount of CPU power to print (you could hear the variable-speed CPU fans rev up when it was printing)
So with all these difficulties, I decided to use some of my bonus to buy a new printer. The one I selected, the Epson Stylus Photo RX700, is more than I would normally pay for a printer, but it happened to have my full wishlist of features and was just released in the US this month:
- Mac-compatible color inkjet printer
- built-in scanner
- built-in card reader
- prints directly to CDs/DVDs
Beyond these high-level features, though, is a printer that is just well designed. The scanner works great, it's fast, and it has two paper trays. The 2.5" LCD screen was at first just a novelty, but it is necessary to access the printer's features as a copier.
I've already tried many of its features and have been impressed with them all. Color copying works great. We made several black-and-white copies using the "zoom to fit" option to automatically increase the size of the copy to fill a standard piece of paper. We also tried out the "2-up" copying option, which allows us to scan two originals and have them shrunk to fit both on one page. Negative scanning works fine, although there is no increased resolution for scanned negatives (so it'll do in a pinch, but it's better to scan a picture). Printing direct to a printable CD/DVD surface works fine, although I had to experiment to be able to get a template created in Photoshop so that I didn't have to use the bundled software (which is Mac-compatible). I have not yet tried borderless printing of photos nor any of the direct-from-memory-card features.
One feature using the memory card I can't wait to try. You put a memory card from a digital camera in the slot and print out an index sheet. This will print out 30 pictures on each page (on plain paper from the front paper tray). You then load in the size paper you want in the back paper tray (e.g. 4x6 borderless paper). On the index sheet, there are little ovals (SAT-style) where you fill in how many copies of each one you want (and other options, like a date-stamp). You then place the completed index sheet on the scanner bed, use the "Scan Index Sheet" option, specify what kind of paper you loaded, and the printer does the rest! It scans the index sheet, reads your selections, goes back to the memory card to retreive the selected photos, and prints them out. That is just such a cool use of the combined printer/scanner/card reader I'll be trying it after our upcoming New England trip, whether I need to or not!